Nobody Reviews It Better: Dr. No (1962)

Thrasher and Chicken Man team up, as only they can, to bring you a complete retrospective series covering all 22 official James Bond films, in chronological order, concluding with the release of Skyfall on November 9. They've split the reviewing duties evenly, and will cover one to two films per week. Thrasher weighs in first on Dr. No, the film that began the cycle, and one that remains, in so many ways, a significant part of film history.

Bond begins with Dr. No, surely, but it wasn't until Goldfinger, two films later, that he became an (im)mature icon; and if Goldfinger is the stuff of canon, Dr. No is the stuff of curiosity. So much is the same, from characterization to narrative structure to cinematic style, and yet so much is different, different in register, if nothing else. Subtle things, like the odd soundtrack (especially noticeable during the traditional gun barrel opening, and in the often unsteady, intermitent use of the Bond theme music) only seem odd today, in light of the rest of the series. Indeed, the whole aural atmosphere of the film seems unusual by comparison, and in that sense Dr. No indicates the immense importance music would assume in later 007 adventures. No is often an extraordinarily quiet film, much quieter than the others. Even dramatically, there are scenes in No so quiet they look positively experimental compared to the popular bombast of later entries. Think about the scene early in the film in which Sean Connery enters his Jamaican hotel room for the first time; he leisurely moves about the room, checking for anything suspicious, and then he prepares several makeshift alarms so he can check if anyone has tampered with his belongings while he's out. Consider also the scene in which Bond waits for an ally of the nefarious Dr. No to arrive at a remote bungalow; he pours himself a stiff drink, puts on soft Jamaican music, prepares a decoy body in the bedroom with pillows, and gets himself settled in a chair next to the door, patiently playing solitare until his assassin creeps inside. Both of these scenes would have absolutely no place in any subsequent Bond films, especially the latter. This second scene is not only far too slow for a series which switched direction, markedly, from semi-sober drama to playfully absurd romp, it's also incommensurable for Bond's behavior, specifically the way in which he shoots his would-be assassin in cold blood. This is a brutal film, and Connery's Bond is calculating, muscular, sadistic and lean. Connery's natural charm took some time to finess, and his brutishness is in peak form in No; Bond is more boorish here than he would ever be, at least until Daniel Craig stepped into the role. Still, though, despite its differences, No is clearly a 007 film, much more so than the recent Quantum of Solace. True, there's no exciting, nonsensical pre-credits sequence, and no radio-ready pop song to play over the animated credits, and no Q, and no gadgets, and no exotic cars, but Bond's there, however unmannered. All he needed was a few more films before he was properly fitted for the occasion.